A steamer is not many days between ports, and at each there is plenty of amusement. He went to New York, from there to New Orleans, thence to Brazil and back, once again to Brazil, finally returning direct to England and Norway. But often during the voyage, and especially over a glass of punch, he recalled the girl with the plait. How she had looked at him. It did him good only to think of it. He was not very fond of letter-writing, or perhaps he would have written to her. But when he arrived at Christiania, and heard from a friend that her mother was dying, he thought at once: "I shall certainly go and see her; she will think it very good of me, if I do so just now."
Two days later he was sitting before her in the parlour of the little house near the hotel and market-place. His large hands, black with hair and sunburn, stroked his knees as he stooped smilingly forward and asked if she would have him.
She sat lower than he did; her full figure and plump arms were set off by a brown dress, which he stared down on when he did not look into her pale face. She felt each movement of his eyes. She had come from the other room, and from thoughts of death; she heard a little cuckoo clock upstairs announce that it was seven o'clock, and the little thing reminded her of all that was now past. One thing with another made her turn from him with tears in her eyes as she said, "I cannot possibly think of such things how." She rose and walked towards her flowers in the window.
He was obliged to rise also. "Perhaps she will answer me presently," he thought; and this belief gave him words, awkward perhaps, but fairly plain.
She only shook her head and did not look up.
He walked off in a rage, and when he turned and looked at the house again—the little doll's house—he longed to throw it bodily into the sea.
He spent the evening, while waiting for the steamer to Christiania, with Peter Klausson and a few friends, and it was not long before they discovered on what errand he had been, and how he had sped. They knew, too, how he had fared on former occasions. The amount which Hjalmar Olsen drank was in proportion to his chagrin; and the next morning he awoke on board the steamer in a deplorable condition.
Not long afterwards Ella received a well-written letter of excuse, in which he explained that his coming at that time had been well meant, and that it was only when he was there that he realised how foolish it had been. She must not be vexed with him for it. In the course of a month she again received a letter. He hoped that she had forgiven him; he for his part could not forget her. There was nothing more added. Ella was pleased with both the letters. They were well expressed and they showed constancy; but it never occurred to her for a moment that this indirect offer could be received in any other way than before.
She had gone to Christiania in order to perfect herself in the piano and in book-keeping. She added the latter because she had always had a turn for arithmetic. She felt altogether unsettled. Her mother was dead; she had inherited the house and a small fortune, and she wanted to try and help herself. She did not associate with any one in the strange town. She was used to dreaming and making plans without a confidant.